


back from the dead a bit earlier than expected, dude

by thenewlondoner (muleumpyo)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Canonical Character Death, Eddie Dies and Then He Gets Better, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Everybody Lives, Fix-It, M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2020-12-28 12:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21136811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muleumpyo/pseuds/thenewlondoner
Summary: A couple months after the Losers Club reunite, Richie is performing his new show at Radio City Music Hall when he gets heckled by someone he'sprettysure is dead.





	back from the dead a bit earlier than expected, dude

Richie is telling a story about Eddie. He's been doing a lot of that lately. 

When you lose your first love just as you remembered them after 27 years—after he is skewered through by a creepy clown-alien who is also part spider and also big as a fucking _ house _right in front of you, after you're soaked with his blood and you carry his limp body as far away from the now-dead creepy clown-spider-alien as you can which is unfortunately only up to the sewers above, after you have to leave him alone in the dark because the tunnels are collapsing around you and none of your friends have the strength to carry him any further— after all of these things happen in quick succession, you tend to talk about that person. 

It's trauma, his new therapist says.

_ It's prime material for a new show, really, _Richie thinks.

Turns out, it's both, actually. Either way, he talks about it. 

It's been a few months since the events in Derry and everyday he's still remembering more. For twenty or so years, since Richie left Derry for LA and never looked back, he never thought it was weird he couldn't remember a lot about his childhood. He didnt think about his childhood much at all. 

Now he thinks it's weird as _ fuck. _ Seventeen years completely wiped from his mind. Like a goddamn Etch-o-Sketch.

If someone six months ago had asked him about his hometown, Richie wouldn't have been able to pick Derry off a map (it's too small, for one) if his life depended on it. He wouldn't have known his childhood best friends—now his adulthood best friends, thanks—if they had punched him in the face. Maybe they did. 

Now he knows they're out there in the crowd tonight, somewhere in the rows and rows of seats of Radio City Music Hall that Richie Tozier, comedian extraordinaire and finally writing his own material, has filled. How he could go from soullessly spouting a ghostwriter’s dick jokes and the worst kind of adolescent (and unfortunately fairly popular) comedy, to writing his own material and filling larger and larger venues, all within a few months, Richie couldn't tell you. 

Sometimes Richie thinks that maybe the universe is rewarding them for killing It. Bill's got another movie deal in the works, Bev and Ben are apparently both getting important contracts, and Mike is settling in down in Florida and the photos he's taken of his trip down the East Coast are starting to gain attention— Richie is flying to Miami in three weeks for the opening of Mike's photography show. 

Everyone is doing so well, it's fucking weird, man. 

Adult life, as another comedian so succinctly said, is already so goddamn weird. Richie and his friends fought an amorphous being that could transform into the physical representation of their worst fears, so it might as well happen, right?

The more Richie remembers, the harder and easier it is to be what feels like _ himself. _ He's lived for so long with an inexplicable sense of discomfort at who he is— who he knew he was _ pretending _to be—it's strange to do without the mask. Stranger still would be trying to put it back on. 

Not knowing who he was because he couldn't remember—well, that was easier than this shit is turning out to be. Because now Richie knows. Now he knows why he felt like something was missing for so long. 

Something really was. 

The cruel thing is that he lost some of them—Stan, Eddie—as soon as he remembered them. There wasn't enough time. There was hardly any time at all.

Richie's new motto, if he had to choose: Fuck it. 

There's no point in keeping secrets anymore, not for him. Plus, after facing down an inter-dimensional monster that can manifest as his deepest fears, dealing with the press seems, well, pretty fucking easy.

Richie honestly thought coming out as bisexual was going to lose him 'fans'. Not that he gives a fuck that homophobes no longer support him, but in an industry dominated by straight white men (he does still fall under two of those categories), being anything else just makes it harder to succeed. He thought it might kill his career, coming out, which would only be the fourth worst thing to happen this year, the ranking being as follows: 

Richie Tozier's Shittiest Events of the Year, ranked:

**First Place (Gold and Silver Medals!):** Losing Stan and Eddie [tied]

**Third Place (Bronze, baby!):** Killing a fucking clown

**Fourth Place (Honorable mention): **His career being dead as fuck (?)

In reality, coming out ended up, in a weird way, if not helping his career, per se, then at least changing the trajectory to something that feels good, that feels _ right _.

All of which has led up to tonight. New York City. Radio City Music Hall. Crowds of people. Richie onstage, talking about Eddie. All good things, even if they ring a little hollow, now.

So, Richie is talking about Eddie. He's done that a lot. Talked about Eddie, about Stan, about growing up in Derry and the weird shit that happened (without even really touching on It, plenty of weird shit happens in small towns in Maine). It helps him remember. And it's funny as fuck, apparently. 

He's talked about loving Eddie, about losing him. That's not the funny part, but it establishes the basics: Richie Tozier loved Eddie Kapsbrak.

And Richie needs to say it, needs to remind himself he loved Eddie, needs to remind himself all the Losers did. Has to remind himself they had to leave him behind or none of them would have survived at all. 

(He thinks about that scenario, sometimes, too—all of them buried under the collapsed house on Neibolt Street, trapped down there with the bones of all the kids It killed over the centuries, those little souls lost amongst that magpie-like pile of knickknacks and treasures. All of them gone to rot under the earth together. He wonders if that would have been better. Then he tries not to think about it.)

Talking doesn't make any of the loss easier to accept, but it does remind him to go easier on himself. Somewhat. There's definitely still a lot of bad dreams, a lot of guilt. Apparently that's normal, according to his therapist, although Richie wouldn't exactly categorize anything that happened in Derry as _ normal. _ Otherworldly murder clowns hopefully don't grow on trees. Or crash land from space. At least, not often.

Anyway, fuck— so, Richie's onstage at Radio City fucking Music Hall, nearly at the end of his set, telling a story about Eddie. 

"— so, he used to tell all of us about the terrible diseases we'd get if we touched anything. And this is what I really loved about Eddie Kaspbrak, is that he had this like... encyclopedic knowledge of bacteria and viruses which was amazing and also extremely terrifying as a kid ‘cause like, if you already think cooties are gonna kill you, what kind of visions are going through your mind when you hear 'medicine-resistant straphalococcolus aurelius'—" 

"It's _ METHICILLIN_-RESISTANT _ STAPH-_YLOCOC-_CUS _ AUR-_EUS _!" a voice booms out of the crowd. 

It's not as if Richie has never had hecklers. All comedians do. But it surprises him a little that someone would pay to get into a big show like this just to yell at him.

Richie makes himself brush it off. 

"You know, sometimes I swear I can still hear his voice," Richie says casually to the crowd, one hand resting on the mic stand. That elicits a laugh. "Calling to me from the beyond like—" Richie extends his hand out to the audience, as if he's inviting them to say something. When no one does, he beckons them again, more insistently. "Hey, dude, that's your cue! You're supposed to say, 'hey Richie, have you ever heard of a—'" 

"STAPH INFECTION?" the voice responds again, weirdly accurate. 

"Hey! There it is. You got it this time, good going, babe. Everyone, let's give a round of applause to my lovely assistant." Richie waves and he turns to see the stage manager, Carol, hovering in the wings, watching him with narrowed eyes. She’s gonna kill him because he _knows_ this isn't part of his routine but he asks anyway, "Can we have the house lights on, please? So we can see my assistant's face." 

Normally he wouldn't bother, because it's kind of rude (ignoring the part where it's rude to heckle someone) to call someone out in front of a big audience, but he honestly is about 99% sure it has to be one of his friends. Since this is new material, they're the only ones who would know the story, buried so far in their past and their memories, anyway.

He's thinking it's probably Bill, or Mike, or even Bev, good-naturedly trying to roast him. They haven't fully gotten out of that, the way they interacted as kids, close but also occasionally still little shits to one another. 

The house lights go up, the audience emerging from the darkness. Richie pretends to peer out into the crowd. "Where are you, dude?" 

Everyone is sitting, looking around curiously, and Richie thinks the heckler is just going to hide. It's fine, he's already coming up with a joke to cover it— and then someone stands up, right off the side aisle of the orchestra. 

He thought the Losers were sitting on the other side...

Richie starts to say something just as the person comes walking down the aisle toward the stage. Something about the person's walk looks _ eerily _ familiar. Richie's words get caught in his throat. 

There are security guards, one on either side of the stage, tucked away to be hidden unless someone tries to rush the stage (which would be hilarious to see because there is no way Richie is that important.) The guards emerge as the person nears the stage and the lights must be blinding him because, huh, that looks like— 

He waves the security guards down, speaking with basically no connection between his brain and his mouth. "It's okay. Make way for my lovely assistant." 

Except it's not really okay because Richie thinks he sees— and that can't be right— the person walking up the steps toward him is _ Eddie fucking Kaspbrak. _

Shock slams through Richie's body so hard he nearly collapses.

_ Oh great, am I a silent film damsel in distress, fainting at the first sign of danger? _ He's imagining things, _ clearly _ that's the only explanation_, _except what a weird thing to imagine—Richie blinks, but the image doesn't go away. 

Eddie's wearing a dark blue suit and white shirt and black tie, and looks fully and completely alive.

If anything else is happening Richie can't tell, because he can't focus on anything but EDDIE _ FUCKING _KAPSBRAK walking toward him. 

Richie feels his mouth move, and it must be connected to _ something _ because he thinks he says something like, "Hey, honey, you're back from the dead a little early," in the same tone as a fifties housewife welcoming her husband home from work.

The words echo from the speakers set around the theater and he drops the mic because if he's having a hallucination, he doesn't really want anyone to hear him talk to it. Also, his hands feel like they've gone a bit numb. That's not good, right?

If Richie is imagining things, this is going to be really fucking embarrassing. 

A smile spreads across Eddie's face and it's the exact same smile, his face is the same face (a little thinner, perhaps), same eyebrows, same devastating brown eyes, same tightly wound walk that's very very quick and precise, bringing him right before Richie onstage.

"Hey Rich," Eddie says and it's Eddie's voice, deepened through the years but achingly familiar. True enough to break Richie's heart. "Not as dead as anyone thought, huh?"

"Erk," Richie ekes out. He can't speak anymore. It's physically impossible. He feels frozen in place, his heart beating so quickly he can barely tell the beats apart, his breath so quick he is going to pass out for real any second now. His hands are shaking. It's him. It is him. 

"I would have called but… did you know your phone number is unlisted? How did Mike get it before?" Eddie asks. He looks amused. He looks _ alive. _

"Hrgh." Richie's torn between reaching out to touch Eddie and being terrified—honestly, truly terrified— it will prove itself to be a figment of his imagination. Can't he have just another second, regardless of if it's real or fake, of looking at Eddie? Can he have just this?

Deciding for him is Eddie, who reaches out and touches Richie's face. His hands are warm and slightly rough and shaking a bit so Eddie must be nervous, right, he should be nervous too, and he's _ real. _

"How-?" Richie finally whispers. There's about fifteen thousand thoughts and feelings echoing around his head at the moment but that is the loudest. How did Eddie survive? How is he here? How did they not know?

Eddie shrugs slightly. "I don't know. Someone found me down the river, apparently, past the Barrens. Couple days after. Must have gotten flushed out of wherever I was, which, considering what I remember, thankfully I wasn't awake for. The doctors said it didn't make any sense that I was alive because my heart had to have stopped at some point but… none of this shit has made sense so what the fuck, right? I was out for, like, a week. Had so much surgery. A fuckton of physical therapy. I just got out of the hospital a week or two ago. Spent most of it breaking things off with Myra, finding a place to stay. Getting tickets to this.."

Richie can't tear his eyes away from Eddie. He finally reaches a shaking hand to touch Eddie's chest lightly, right over his heart. He can feel the _ thump-thump-thump _ of Eddie's heartbeat under his hand, or maybe it's his own, but Eddie is _ here. _

"Eddie," Richie finally says, voice cracking, and Eddie's eyes soften. "I'm sorry. You were dead. I swear. I didn't— we didn't want to leave y—"

"I know." Eddie thumbs across his cheek. "It's okay. You don't need to… don't cry…" 

"W-what are you talking about?" Richie replies but his voice is shaking. "I'm n-not crying."

He is definitely crying. Tears are pouring down his face, fast and hot, and his throat feels tight, like a large sob is coming up but it's gotten stuck. All the pain of the last couple months, some acknowledged, most not, is making itself known in Richie's heart. He can barely see Eddie's watery face. Maybe it's his own tears blinding him, but Eddie looks like he's crying too.

He hasn't been paying much (okay, any) attention to what the audience has been doing during their reunion. What the fuck does he care?

But just then he sees a group of people running up to the stage, and he recognizes Bev's distinctive hair, Mike and Ben towering over the others in their impeccable suits (Bill had insisted) and of course, Bill himself hurrying up to the edge of the stage. The guards are trying to stop them, which would be funny, if sad, to watch them try to stop the Losers from reuniting.

If an inter-dimensional clown alien hadn't been able to stop them, security at Radio City Music Hall has no chance. 

Richie waves to let the Losers up on stage and then gives up trying to pretend to have any idea of how this all works, and throws his arms around Eddie. It's good Eddie is so short, he fits right into Richie's arms. Eddie's arms tighten around him even as the rest of the Losers join them onstage. 

He feels the group all pile in around them, hugging them tight and, until they're finally wrapped around each other, all the Losers left alive. Richie wishes, not for the first time or the last by far, that Stan was here with them. But he'll take it, he'll be grateful for every bit of them that's here, that's yelling Eddie's name or spinning Eddie around to hug him tight, ruffling his hair, holding his face, kissing his cheeks, everything. Anything. 

Happiness, bright and sharp like a summer sun, alights in him. He never thought he'd have this again, he thought it was over, really over. Maybe he'll wake up tomorrow and it'll all be a great, terrible dream but he may as well as lean into it now. 

Richie breaks free and scoops up the mic to bring it up to his lips. He cant even remember what the fuck else he had to say tonight because it doesn't matter. He's laughing and he's crying and he has a million emotions running through him but it doesn't matter. 

Richie waves an arm over his embracing friends. "Straight from the tales themselves, here tonight are some special guests— the Losers Club!"

Richie grabs his friends and spins them around and they wave, a little flustered and a little overwhelmed already, to the crowd. 

The audience applauds. A lot are turning to talk to each other, a little confused, and Richie can't blame them. It's confusing and not at all planned and the best thing that's ever happened, period. He's kept one hand on Eddie this whole time, just trying to make sure he's really real, he's really here, he's not going to lose him again. 

Richie pulls Eddie forward, one arm over Eddie's shoulders. He fits so perfectly. "And the one, the only, Eddie Kaspbrak, everyone! Back from the dead!" 

Eddie raises a hand, his cheeks flushed under the bright stage lights. It's funny, because he was the one with the balls to heckle someone onstage at Radio City Music Hall but now he seems almost embarrassed. There had to be a less public way to find Richie, if he really wanted to, but Richie isn't complaining. Not a bit. 

The audience, familiar with Richie's stories of Eddie and the struggle that's been losing him, applauds loudly and there are a few cheers. 

"That's our show, folks! I'm Richie Tozier and you have been a great crowd, thank you so much New York!" Richie waves, totally on autopilot. He won't let go of Eddie, and Eddie's arm has slipped around his waist, slotting them even more perfectly together. 

They had barely touched, before… nothing like their childhood growing up all piled on top of each other, Eddie squishing his skinny legs into the hammock with Richie, jumping on his back as they splashed around in the quarry on those long, impossible summer days, falling asleep on each others shoulders as they tried to watch the late night reruns of movies on the tiny television set in the Tozier's living room. When they had met up again as adults, they'd both been so awkward, Richie for far different reasons than Eddie. 

He'd forgotten how much he loved Eddie next to him. 

Usually Richie walks off at the end of the set, but the stage manager must realize it's going to be a problem coordinating the six of them to do so anytime soon, so she must make the call to drop the curtain instead. The heavy red curtain starts to descend from the rafters, cutting the spotlight's glare. The lights above the stage begin to dim, and even though they're in front of a huge crowd, still, it feels more private almost immediately. 

"So, I heard you love me," Eddie says. His voice is so quiet and yet even in a room—or Radio City Music Hall— filled with people, Richie knows Eddie's talking to him.

"Yeah." Richie has no other response. He couldn't deny it if he tried, and he doesn't want to, anyway. 

Eddie looks up at him. Even in the dim light, his brown eyes strike Richie with the same force they always have. Straight in the heart. "I didn't forget," Eddie says and there's something there, something threading under the words that makes Richie's heart leap. "Anything."

"Me neither," Richie murmurs. 

Eddie huffs out a laugh. "Yeah. I've been listening to your... your new stuff. A lot of weird shit happened to us back in Derry, right?"

"Yeah. So much weird shit," Richie agrees. "A lifetime's worth of stories." 

Eddie's gaze wavers from Richie's eyes down to his lips, and back. Richie doesn't imagine that—it really happens. 

There's something searching in Eddie's expression as he asks, "And a lot of good stuff, too? Right?" 

Richie wants to say something cool, something suave, but Eddie is alive and breathing next to him, the warmth of his body pressed up against Richie's chest, and Richie never thought this could happen ever again. So he says what he's thinking, answers what he thinks Eddie might be asking. "The best, yeah. All the best... the best things happened there, too."

Eddie takes a deep breath. As the curtain cuts off the last of the spotlight, and they're left in their own private world for a brief moment, he reaches up and cups Richie's cheek. Lifting onto his toes, Eddie arches towards him and kisses Richie at the corner of his lips. It's so quick and so, so soft, but the effect zips through Richie like a lightning bolt.

"The best," Eddie murmurs as he pulls away.

Eddie's hands on his face, breath across his lips, the dizzying mixture of adrenaline and relief and that deeper, fiercer core of, well, _ love_, make him feel better than he ever has in his life. Richie is stunned speechless. Well, sort of. 

"Except for right now," Richie mumbles. His voice automatically goes into that fake British accent he used to do all the time growing up, the one that always used to make Eddie shake his head and smile. "I think we have a new contender for the gold medal, folks."

Eddie laughs, eyes bright even in the low light backstage. "Do you think you've got room for me, maybe, back in LA?" 

Richie holds Eddie tighter to him. He can't help his ridiculous grin. Eddie always was braver than him. "Definitely." 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> if you want to suffer through reddie with me, my tumblr is @faeheyjesper
> 
> * * *
> 
> no, i don't know where this came from except apparently liking reddie means imagining every scenario where the events of the end of the movie lead into eddie being alive and reddie being canon. 
> 
> i swear one day stan will be alive, too, but today... was not that day :(
> 
> * * *
> 
> as always, jessica.... thank you for wading through the reddie with me <3


End file.
